Cincinnati Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls will lead a contingent of elected officials and community leaders on a road trip to Columbus on Monday to look at some apartment complexes built for homeless people there.

The group will tour two complexes built by National Church Residences (NCR) that provide permanent, supportive housing to formerly homeless individuals.

An account has been created at a local bank to accept donations to help pay for the funeral expenses of a homeless man who died last weekend.

William "Baldy" Floyd, 45, died late Sunday night after a fire spread through a camp near Mehring Way and Sixth Street downtown. Baldy was featured in a CityBeat cover story about homeless camps in September.

Six gay-oriented taverns in Covington are teaming up Saturday for a “Zero Tolerance for Hate Crimes” event, in response to a recent violent attack on four people at a nearby gas station.

The event, which begins at 9 p.m., involves a gathering at the corner of Pike and Main streets in a show of strength and unity. Businesses participating are Blue Bar, Bar Monet, Yadda Club, Leapin' Lizard Gallery, 701 Bar and Rosie's Tavern.

Across the nation, commemorations of Gay Pride Month have just wrapped up. In Cincinnati, where things often seem a little behind the times, they haven't even begun yet.

Cincinnati Pride Equinox 2011 is scheduled for July 7-10 in the Queen City. To kick off the festivities, a multi-faith worship service will be held at St. John's Unitarian Universalist Church at 7 p.m. July 7.

The wife of an Israeli diplomat in India and her driver were injured Monday when the car they were traveling in was bombed, while another bomb was defused outside an Israeli embassy in Tblisi, Georgia. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed Iran, which he called “the greatest exporter of terror in the world.”

Connecticut is 17th to abolish capital punishment

Connecticut will soon join the list of states that have ended
the use of capital punishment.

In an 86-63 vote, legislators in Connecticut’s House of
Representatives passed the bill Wednesday night. The state Senate approved the
measure April 5, in a 20-16 vote.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, a
Democrat, has indicated he will sign the bill when it reaches his desk,
probably sometime this week. A similar bill was vetoed by then-Gov. Jodi Rell,
a Republican, in 2009.

Connecticut’s law is
prospective in nature, and won’t affect the sentences of the 11 people
currently on the state’s death row.

In the last five years, New
Jersey, New Mexico, New York and Illinois have repealed the death penalty,
according to CNN. California voters will decide the issue in November.

Other states that have
abolished capital punishment are Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts,
Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia and
Wisconsin.

Meanwhile, a man who spent 21 years on Ohio’s death row until he was
exonerated in 2010 will speak tonight at a forum in Clifton.

Joe D’Ambrosio
will discuss his experience and
why he believes the death penalty should be scrapped at 6:30 p.m. at the St.
Monica-St. George Parish Newman Center, located at 328 W. McMillan St. D’Ambrosio
will be joined by the Rev. Neil Kookoothe, a Roman Catholic priest who worked
to get him released.

D’Ambrosio was wrongfully
convicted of the 1988 murder of Anthony Klann in Cleveland. Cuyahoga County
prosecutors withheld 10 pieces of evidence that would have exonerated
D’Ambrosio at his trial and implicated another suspect in the crime, a judge
ruled in March 2010.

D’Ambrosio is the
140th Death Row exoneration in the United States since 1973 and the sixth
in Ohio.

This week’s Porkopolis column
looks at a report from Amnesty International about the use of capital
punishment throughout the world, and how the United States is one of the only
industrialized nations that still condones the practice.

In news you've likely already heard
from your favorite website, social network, radio station, print
publication, TV or the guy in your neighborhood who likes to talk
about current events, President Barack Obama yesterday announced his
support for same-sex marriage, becoming the first-ever sitting
president to do so. The news has spawned analysis from across the
land, ranging from “risky but inevitable” to “matters less than
you think.” The Enquirer says the decision is going to “echo in
Ohio” (whatever that means).

The “No. 2 official at the Hamilton
County Sheriff’s Office” says the jail being next to the casino
will be bad for business, according to an Enquirer story detailing
worries over jail overcrowding leading to accused criminals to go
into the casino to “get warm, panhandle customers or just give
visitors a bad impression of Cincinnati.”

Hamilton County Commissioner Todd
Portune yesterday cancelled a new truck order for Paul Brown Stadium,
instead giving the vehicles to Parking Operations. Parking Operations
was supposed to get the stadium's used trucks after the stadium
received new ones, but Portune said the stadium doesn't need brand
new stuff all the time.

Up north, Columbus Mayor Michael
Coleman says his city wants an NBA basketball team now that the
public has purchased the arena the Columbus Blue Jackets play in.

Facebook will soon launch an App
Center, because it's so annoying to have to leave Facebook to get
cool new apps.

Famous hairdresser Vidal Sassoon died
yesterday after a bout with leukemia. He apparently played a large
role in creating “wash and go” hairstyling and later
revolutionizing the hair-care industry. Here's a Philadelphia
Inquirer obit. And five ways Vidal Sassoon changed people's hair. Sassoon, according to the book Insider's Guide to Cincinnati, had a home in Mount Adams (his wife was a Greater Cincinnati native).